The Rooftop Gardening Source

It is said that the mother of innovation is necessity, and in the 21^st year of his 27 year imprisonment, legendary peacemaker Nelson Mandela found a way to plant a rooftop garden in the most unlikely of places.

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela describes that “to escape from a monolithic concrete world” he requested to use the prison roof to start a garden. During the day to day struggle towards freedom, Mandela noticed the large empty space bathed in sunlight on the roof of his prison, a perfect place to grow a vegetable garden.

Mandela found unlikely investors for his garden; the prison wardens and officers keeping him behind bars. Mandela offered the idea of the rooftop garden to the commanding officer at Pollsmoor prison and requested 16 oil barrels, cut in half, and then, Mandela writes, “the authorities filled them [oil drums] with rich moist soil, in effect 32 giant flowerpots…the wardens gave me seeds of vegetables they liked and I was supplied with excellent manure.”

On top of the space that held him captive, Mandela spent two hours each morning working on his roof top garden. He grew onions, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, beans, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries and much more. At its height, Mandela had over 900 plants on his roof top garden.

Mandela used the rooftop garden as a common ground for peace, a space that yielded sustenance to feed both prisoners and the authorities alike. In the modern urban world where tall buildings dominate the landscape, it is time again to invest in the rooftop garden, this time as a green peace offering to our environment.

- By Joseph Agoada, Chairman of Two Wheeled Foundation, Inc., recycling bicycles for global development and climate change mitigation.  www.twowheeledfoundation.org

Eli Zabar’s grocery store and restaurant in Manhattan is a prime example of using urban rooftop space for agriculture. This roof has commercial-size production greenhouses filled with raised beds planted in greens and herbs and tomatoes. Fig trees in planters are lined up sporadically along the edge of one rooftop. All vegetables and fruits produced in these greenhouses are sold in the grocery store and restaurant below.

http://www.elizabar.com/vinegar.html

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Want to learn more about this project?

http://www.zeek.net/612ableman/

The Rooftop Garden Source was created by urban agriculture enthusiasts looking to provide the world with current events, links, academic articles and professional commentary on the growing rooftop vegetable farming industry.

We recently stumbled upon this sustainable and logical farming method which has been in practice for centuries. We have conducted research and learned that his could without a doubt be applied globally to help fight climate change and hunger amongst a handful of other pressing issues. The potential for rooftop vegetable farming is limitless.

Unfortunately, this concept is not organized on the internet and is relatively unknown outside the urban agriculture community. It is our vision that we can help bring this revolutionary and world saving farming method to the main stream by creating a place on the internet which organizes all rooftop vegetable farming resources.

The Roof Garden Source is a project by the Urban Agriculture firm, Sky Vegetables. More information about Sky Vegetables will be added in the near future.

Thanks and Enjoy

The Sky Vegetables Staff

Over twenty years ago, the Gaia Institute developed the capacity to create ultra-lightweight soil out of the waste stream in order to establish ecological and agricultural systems on rooftops. Much further developed in recent years, a patent was awarded in 2005 for this plant growth medium. A grant from the Bronx Initiative in Energy and the Environment and the Bronx Overall Development Corporation in the Bronx Borough President’s Office made it possible to build an instrumented, stormwater capture and educational green roof facility in partnership with St. Simon Stock School.

http://www.gaiainstituteny.org/

Rooftop Garden Project, Montreal, Canada

After five seasons of gardening and experimenting, the Rooftop Garden project team is happy to share the fruits of its labor with you. The Guide to Setting up Your Own Edible Rooftop Garden comes from our wish to see new gardens and partners take root in the fertile soil of Montreal but also in other parts of the world.

Our goal is to make planting these oases of edible nature in the city easier so that more and more people will start gardening on rooftops and discovering its benefits.

The document is available in English and Canada. Hard copies can be purchased for $20 or you can download a copy for FREE at the Rooftop Garden Project website: Get your copy by clicking here

http://www.cityfarmer.info/guide-to-setting-up-your-own-edible

The three-day conference will consist of plenary and specialized sessions focused on four main topic areas:

1. Policies and Programs to Support Green Roofs
2. Green Roof Design and Implementation
3. Research and Technical Papers on Green Roof Performance
4. Networking & Information Forums on Current Green Roof Topics.

This conference is designed for architects, landscape architects, roofing professionals, green roof researchers, horticulturalists, urban planners, facility managers and developers, policy makers and anyone with an interest in green roofs and green buildings.

By: Erik Olsen

True Nature Foods, a community-oriented organic foods store has installed a 1,400 sf green roof on top of their building, a former auto shop. This modest project would be similar to many others in Chicago if it weren’t for the fact that this roof is to be food-producing - plants grown on the roof will eventually be sold alongside the store’s other produce. The roof was made possible through the efforts of Urban Habitat Chicago, a start-up nonprofit interested in experimental projects.

One of the first crops likely to be harvested, cold-hardy romaine lettuce, is shown here, but the variety of plantings, including buckwheat, burdock, comfrey, Jerusalem artichoke is impressive. Plans for spring and summer include mint, rosemary, oregano, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and squash. No wonder they’ve named the project after war-era victory gardens, which the building site actually once hosted. The green roof design and plant selections were by Michael Repkin Designs. A portion of the project funding came from the Chicago Department of Environment’s Greeen Roof Grant Program.

http://greenbean.typepad.com/greenbean/2006/12/true_nature_roo.html

By Hazim Younis

Recently, Egypt has embarked on a project to increase the amount of greenery on rooftops. This provided a good opportunity for housewives and youth to use their time fruitfully and increase oxygen production in a choking environment.

Due to the rapid expansion of the Egyptian population, and building on cultivated land, there are limited resources for many families living in the major cities. This situation has a negative impact on the general well-being of the families living in poor urban or suburban neighborhoods. Similar conditions can be found in much of the developing world. A solution to a small part of this problem could be providing these families with an easy source of income and healthy nutrition.

This easy-to-do project can be carried out by anyone. All the materials and professional advice needed are found at the Central Laboratory of Agricultural Climate (CLAC). Dr. Usama Al Baheiri, president of CLAC, states that vast areas are not required to carry out the project. However, it is important that all sorts of junk or garbage be removed from the rooftop so that no sunlight is blocked from the plants. The area to be used should have sunlight for at least four to five hours daily to allow enough exposure for the fruits and vegetables to flourish.

http://www.islamonline.net/English/Science/2004/09/article03.shtml

The four-floor, 132,000-square-foot facility creates an academic quadrangle on the southwest corner of the Monroe Park Campus. Science and math faculty – as well as education professors who prepare future science teachers – will be within steps of one another’s classrooms and laboratories. The facility contains exciting new learning spaces including seven classrooms, two lecture halls, computer labs, and a student study lounge – all equipped with state-of-the-art multimedia technology.

The life sciences building features 17 undergraduate instructional laboratories. In addition to general biology and anatomy laboratories the building offers specialty laboratories for advanced courses. Those include genetics, molecular biology, bioinformatics, ecology, environmental science, botany, physiology and microbiology.

A rooftop greenhouse is a research-grade facility that can control humidity, temperature and light. The 3,000-square-foot greenhouse supports a pesticide-free room and three environments simultaneously: desert, mild climates much like Central Virginia and tropic.

http://www.vcu.edu/lifesci/facilities/fac_eugene.html

By Brianna Bodine

The greenhouse will function as a hands-on lab for students, a production site for general lab specimens, and a research facility for faculty. Tours for school groups and special interest organizations will also be scheduled. “Since the greenhouse is on the roof, we will not be able to develop theme gardens outside the building as we had hoped,” said biology professor Larry Giesmann, “but individual laboratory classes can visit the facility, and small off-campus groups can be accommodated for educational outreach.” Giesmann is expected to become the greenhouse manager upon the project’s completion. During his spring 2006 sabbatical leave, Giesmann worked with local greenhouses and took a Greenhouse and Garden Center Management course at Cincinnati State University.

http://media.www.thenortherner.com/media/storage/paper527/news/